Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) Read Online Free

leaned against our grainy-looking fake “Spanish Moss” granite Corian countertop sink where she was working, folded my arms and had to listen to a long load of prurient excrement flow from her mouth.
    But, let me stop here because if you didn’t catch it, the word prurient is a perfect word to shorten into a way cool word, like pru . “Pru, man, that’s so pru!” Hmm. Has potential. I just might try it out on Tanya, see what she thinks.
    So, she’s going on, mom that is, and I’m having to stand there and listen while she makes her case about why I must go with her on a ride with the welcome wagon to see the freak and his dad and to say, “So, nice to know you “ and “ Welcome to our neighborhood.” ‘Cause, for me, it would be a lie and, like, the Bible says, it’s bad to lie. In fact, it’s Hell time if you lie so that’s kind of what I said to mom and so she says,
    “ The Riders,” How does she know their name? “Probably feel a little lonely since the mother passed away.” What the? Where was she getting her intell?
    She stopped. Then turning to me, again, she puts one hand to her heart and says, “Remember how we felt when daddy died?”
    Of course. God. I had to nod my head because my eyes began to burn all of the sudden.
    “ Well, I’m sure that’s how they feel now.” She turned back as she loaded her favorite red and white Macy’s bag with the pie, two plastic forks, two plastic knives and two paper towels that she’d detached into singles and folded into quarters. “There.” Like it was Michelangelo’s David or something.
    I rolled my eyes and humphawed again. I’ m really super-good at humphawing.
    “ Come on.”
    “ Now!?” I screamed.
    “ Well, of course, now. The pie is hot and if you,” this is where all of the emotion she could muster came rolling off her tongue, “do, not, lose that attitude, young lady, I will think about a punishment worth the crime.” She lifted the ropy straps of the Macy’s bag and grabbed my arm moving me away from our fake Corian counter, twisting my body toward the door and pushing me. “Go. Come on.”
    “ Quit pushing me.”
    “ You know.” She made a noise that sounded a lot like losing air. “When was the last time you read something from your Bible?” We were out the door by then and she walked nearly on my heels with that stupid bag poking me in the middle of my back like I was going to be the first lamb to the slaughter and all the while it’s her demented idea to act as the neighborhood welcoming committee. God.
    “ Gah. Mother.” Rolling my eyes again!
    “ Quit whining, or else.”
    What does that mean, exactly. Or else. Or else, what? Or else the world will finally implode from all of the pent up toxic gasses brewing at its core and I will never, not ever have to meet freak-boy next door? Or else. Or else, Jesus Christ himself will appear which would stop us, forever—I mean forever ‘cause that’s the effect Jesus has on folks—having to visit any new neighbors at all or especially to go over to freak-boy’s house across the street. Or else... I mean. Really. We could play this game for an eternity, this ‘or else’ thing. God.
     
     
    QUATRO - Don't Give Neighbors Sugar!
    His father answered the door. And, if I had, at that moment, a paintbrush, and if I could’ve painted anything across his face? It would be a big yellow question mark.
    He looked like he’d been asleep or something ‘cause his blue button-up short sleeve shirt looked like a map of some land far, far away in the kingdom of Wrinkle, and he was wearing, somehow, someway, a pair of overly relaxed jeans. The pocket hung just on the top of his thigh and one hand was so deep in it I thought he might be looking for a lost gummy bear or something.
    Plus, one of his white tube socks had a hole at the end of it and his third, or maybe, fourth toe was sticking through inspecting the situation at the door. The toenail on the thing looked like a mouse had